Chapter 3

Mike looked at Jessica, then at Chad.

The envelope was still in Chad's outstretched hand.

"You have no idea what you're meddling in, Chad," Mike said, his voice quiet but firm.

"Forcing this, especially like this, will bring consequences you can't even imagine."

He paused, letting his words sink in.

"We're talking serious legal repercussions, not just for you."

Chad stared at him for a second, then burst into laughter.

His entourage joined in, a chorus of mockery.

"Legal repercussions?" Chad choked out, wiping a fake tear from his eye. "From who, Collins? Your 'corporate security' buddies? Gonna send the night watchman after me?"

"He's delusional!" one of Chad's friends cackled.

"Threatening Chad Miller? That's rich!"

Jessica looked down at her shoes, shame and something else, maybe relief, warring on her face.

"Mike," Jessica finally said, her voice trembling, but with a new resolve.

She stepped closer to Chad, who put a possessive arm around her waist.

"It's true, Mike, Chad and I... we've been seeing each other."

The admission hung in the air. So, this was it.

"Chad wanted to... to settle things, tonight, publicly," she continued, tears welling in her eyes, though Mike thought they looked a little too practiced.

"He thought it would be easier this way, for everyone."

Easier for whom? Mike thought.

"You're a good man, Mike, you really are," she said, her voice thick with feigned sorrow. "But you're just not ambitious enough, your job is so secretive, so... boring. It makes you impossible to live with, I can't do it anymore."

Mike looked at her, the woman he had married, the woman who now stood with another man, justifying her affair and this public ambush.

He realized then, the whole gala, her insistence on coming, it was all a setup.

A stage for Chad to humiliate him and pressure Jessica into making a final break.

The depth of the manipulation was stunning.